88 OUT WITH THE BIRDS 



spectacle. The nest, which had been half 

 burned, was remodelled around the rim with 

 fresh down from her breast, but within it were 

 six eggs, cruelly fire-blasted and brown. 



The number of duck and grouse mothers that 

 have their nests despoiled in this manner, every 

 spring, is sad to contemplate. Doubtless there 

 are countless thousands of eggs destroyed thus 

 by the farmers of the northwest, during every 

 nesting season. In the work of destruction, the 

 prairie fire is aided by the plow. The farmer 

 can do little, usually, to save the eggs from the 

 plow, but he cannot be readily pardoned for 

 burning his grass-lands in the nesting season. 

 Indeed, many nests on the stubble may be saved, 

 too, and I have seen right-minded plowmen leave 

 a little patch of stubble rather than plow the 

 setting under; or carefully pick up the nest and 

 transplant it on the plowing. Many nests so 

 dealt with will be forsaken by their owners, but 

 if the parent bird has been hatching some time, 

 she will often return. In districts where crows 

 are plentiful, this precaution is usually a waste 

 of time, as it is apt to be only a matter of hours 

 till some sharp-eyed marauder finds the unpro- 

 tected nest, 



